In the race for Wisconsin Governor, a newly released Marquette University Law School Poll finds Democrat, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley leading Republican 7th District Congressman Tom Tiffany among likely voters by 49% to 44%, with 7% undecided. The candidates are tied among all registered voters at 44% each, with 12% undecided.

WRN’s Bob Hague spoke with University of Wisconsin La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky about the poll results and governor’s race, as well races for attorney general and the Wisconsin Legislature.

Noting that statewide elections in Wisconsin are normally closely contested, Chergosky says the MU Poll found more voters had strong opinions on Tiffany.

“One thing that stood out to me is that a sizable chunk of the electorate does not have an opinion either way on David Crowley. They don’t know enough about him to make an assessment positive or negative. Tom Tiffany is much more well-defined in the minds of voters in the sense that much more voters have either a positive or negative view of him.”

AI data centers promise to be a significant issue in the campaign, Chergosky notes poll respondents favor some type of statewide moratorium on new data center developments,

“We saw a strong majority of registered voters say that they would support the one-year moratorium proposal that really helped Francesca Hong gain so much traction in the Democratic Party primary. But neither Crowley nor Tiffany is calling for that type of moratorium, even though it seems many voters would be receptive to it. The debate between Crowley and Tiffany has been about taxes. It has been about local control. It has been about the ways that Crowley supporters and unions might benefit from construction of data centers. Tiffany has tied data center issues torural Wisconsin and farmland saying that data centers would pose a threat to our rural communities and a threat to farmland.”

Congressman Tiffany earned the early endorsement of President Donald Trump, while Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers encouraged Crowley to reenter the race after he’d earlier dropped out, then endorsed him in the Democratic primary in which he narrowly defeated Madison state Representative Francesca Hong.

“I think those linkages matter a lot because for David Crowley, he is understandably viewed as the candidate of Governor Tony Evers, whose endorsement was pivotal in helping Crowley win the nomination. Meanwhile, in Congress, we have seen that Tom Tiffany is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. And the Marquette poll shows that many Wisconsin voters do view Tiffany as being part of the MAGA movement. So that means that Tiffany and Trump are kind of connected just as Crowley and Evers are connected.”

The first and perhaps only debate between Tiffany and Crowley by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association is scheduled for October 9th.

“I think debates matter because they are a ritual of democracy where the candidates are face to face confronting one another. I also think it’s valuable to have candidates defend themselves and articulate their positions in an unscripted manner where on the campaign trail they might be reading a speech or they might have memorized their speech and in TV ads of course those are highly scripted and crafted by expert consultants. So I think there’s something to be said for debates in the sense of demanding that candidates can communicate what they stand for in an unscripted format.”

Chergosky says its possible that the WBA debate will be the only opportunity for voters to see the candidates square off face to face.